The legend of the Rat Pack is well known. “They were to hippest, coolest bunch of cats around: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop,” says the programme. “Their inexhaustible energy, sheer talent and camaraderie still holds a fascination in the public’s imagination.” It certainly does – the audience had really dressed up in glamour clothes to go to the Peacock Theatre for a big night out to listen to the crooning impersonators of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin. Ambience had been created by placing black jack and roulette tables around the theatre. You were only able to gamble if you had an “invitation” and I had not idea what that meant so I just felt disappointed that I couldn’t join in. A nice thought though.

Stephen Triffit as Sinatra, George Daniel Long as Davis and Mark Adams as Martin delivered Rat Pack favourite tunes like “The Lady is a Tramp,” “New York, New York,” and “Volare” and I’m surprised that those around me didn’t join in with the singing. I really thought that one ought to – it was that kind of evening – but felt too timid to take the lead. Triffit was particularly good and really did look like Sinatra facially. Sammy Davis Jr was so distinct looking that it is fairly easy to reconstruct him but Long is also a great dancer and good to watch in his own right ( ie not just for what he can do to look like SDJ!). Adams is perhaps a little too Dean Martinish, delivering far too many hammed up jokes about drunks. The band is terrific and the atmosphere pleasant. Well worth a trip. It’s not just about nostalgia – it is a real celebration of great talent and brilliantly written songs.

The Rat Pack, playing for a week at London's Peacock Theatre to round off the first leg of a national tour, should not be confused with Rat Pack Confidential. The latter, a stage adaptation of Shawn Levy's book staged at Nottingham in September, was more ambivalent about Frank Sinatra's showbiz gang. This, on the other hand, is celebration from beginning to end.

The show aims to re-create the legendary, faux-shambolic joint performances given by Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr in the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas during the early 1960s. Indeed, not just the show: on opening night, guests were generously staked to $1,000 of play money to fritter away on the roulette and blackjack tables in the various foyers. But the business onstage is simply a concert-style group of impersonations; the patter is largely if not entirely scripted, but the only "plot" is that of three stars singing and joshing their way through an evening's cabaret.

The year is 1962, when Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin joined forces to play the legendary Sands Casino. But for this tribute show, director Mitch Sebastian has allowed some late entries in the vocal line-up – New York, New York for example, and the inevitable My Way – plus more risque exchanges between the principals than were possible at the time.

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